Visitors can watch as artisans work at Chronoswiss in Lucerne.
watches with more traditional dials. Each offered a new take on a classic
complication, and all of them appealed to classic watch lovers. Its style
then, and now, almost always includes watches with engraved dials,
coin-edged bezels, screwed lugs and onion-style crowns. Enamel and
engraved dials are also a specialty within the company.
Sporty models like the Chronoswiss Timemaster boasted even larger
onion-shaped crowns that recall those used on vintage racing and
aviation watches. And from the very start of the brand, Chronoswiss has
drawn from an enviable cache of vintage Enicar 165 movements to create
custom calibers for many of its best-known models. In addition, many
of its best-known movements start as solid ETA Valjoux and Unitas base
calibers, which Chronoswiss upgrades and, often, skeletonizes.
The Chronoswiss Opus, which debuted in 1995, for example, was
probably the first skeletonized automatic chronograph wristwatch,
while the Kairos Chronograph offered a rare off-centered display. The
The new Chronoswiss Flying
Grand Regulator Limited Edition
features a complex multi-level
dial with galvanic black or red
varnish with guilloche pattern.
Chronoswiss Delphis, meanwhile, was the first wristwatch to combine
analog, digital and retrograde displays.
LATEST REGULATORS
Next to the clear caseback, the regulator dial has become Chronoswiss’
most emulated innovation. And even as many other watchmakers began
to create their own regulator dials, Chronoswiss moved ahead, devising a
host of watches based on the regulator concept. These newer Regulator
watches typically host classic functions and appear in several case
shapes.
Over the years Chronoswiss has, for example, combined its Regulator
with a chronograph, a tourbillon, within skeleton models, using digital
hour indication, framed by rectangular cases and even as a pocket watch.
Since the regulator watch is so closely linked with its history,
Chronoswiss this year celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Chronoswiss
Regulator with a series of new Regulator designs. In addition,
Chronoswiss itself turns 35 this year, which means there’s yet another
reason to celebrate.
Chronoswiss, therefore, has created five anniversary presents for its
collectors, and all of them are new Regulator watches. One new model,
which debuted this yea r at Baselworld, is the Flying Regulator Open Gear
Anniversary.
“With the limited Flying Regulator Open Gear Anniversary Edition,
we are celebrating our 35-year history with it– hence the red 35 on
the minute scale – and simultaneously honoring its bestselling model,”
explains Chronoswiss CEO Oliver Ebstein.
54 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | SUMMER 2018
“The anniversary watch’s unusual design is a play on the regulator
theme itself, placing it front and center with our “Open Gear” design.
The dial is simultaneously its module board, onto which the train wheel
bridges of the skeletonized gears are mounted.”
Another of these celebratory models, the Flying Grand Regulator
Skeleton Limited Edition, which appears on the cover of this issue of iW,
combines several emblematic Chronoswiss features, the regulator and a
skeletonized movement, in one limited edition series. You’ll see images
and descriptions of all five new Chronoswiss regulator watches on
these pages.
CONTINUING THE LEGACY
Ebstein, the businessman who with his wife Eva Marie purchased
Chronoswiss in 2012, tells International Watch that very little has changed
at Chronoswiss since he moved its headquarters to Lucerne several years
ago. Chronoswiss is a Swiss company, and Ebstein says he continues
to adhere to Gerd-R Lang’s approach: to only manufacture watches
according to the Swiss standards of watchmaking, and to use only
components from Swiss suppliers.
“Everything is designed and manufactured in Lucerne, in our House
of Chronoswiss,” he explains. “It is designed to be very open and
transparent, from the architecture but also from our approach.”